from Anthony SanFillioppo of Crossing Broad,

Two longtime Philadelphia Flyers athletic trainers, who have worked side-by-side at the team’s training facility in Voorhees, N.J. for the past 18 years, are suing team ownership, among others, after receiving similar medical diagnoses that they allege came from a work environment in which they were unknowingly exposed to cancer-causing carcinogens, Crossing Broad has learned.

Jim McCrossin, 64, Flyers Director of Medical Services, who joined the team in 2000, and assistant athletic trainer Sal Raffa, 42, who joined the team in 2004, were both diagnosed with nearly identical and incurable blood diseases and/or cancer a few months apart in the Spring and Summer of 2021.

McCrossin developed the rare medical conditions essential thrombocythemia, myeloproliferative neoplasm, and the blood cancer myelofibrosis, which is terminal.

Raffa developed thrombocythemia, which is incurable and is proliferative for other blood diseases such as cancer, or inducing strokes.

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